Keep it simple
Pope urges church to reach out to the poor
The Guardian Online
Catholic pilgrims attending World Youth Day crowd at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro yesterday after spending the night sleeping here following a prayer vigil headed by Pope Francis, inset. Photo: AFP
Pope Francis drew hundreds of thousands of flag-waving faithful to Rio’s Copacabana beach on Saturday for the final evening of World Youth Day, hours after he chastised the Brazilian church for failing to stem the “exodus” of Catholics to evangelical congregations.
Francis headed into the final hours of his first international trip riding a remarkable wave of popularity.
In the longest and most important speech of his four-month pontificate, Francis took a direct swipe at the “intellectual” message of the church that so characterised the pontificate of his predecessor, Benedict XVI. Speaking to Brazil’s bishops, he said ordinary Catholics didn’t understand such lofty ideas and needed to hear the simpler message of love, forgiveness and mercy that he said was at the core of the Catholic faith.
“At times we lose people because they don’t understand what we are saying, because we have forgotten the language of simplicity and import an intellectualism foreign to our people,” he said. “Without the grammar of simplicity, the church loses the very conditions which make it possible to fish for God in the deep waters of his mystery.”
Francis asked bishops to reflect on why hundreds of thousands of Catholics had left the church for Protestant and Pentecostal congregations that have grown exponentially in recent decades, particularly in Brazil’s slums or favelas, where their charismatic message and nuts-and-bolts advice has been welcomed.
Francis offered a breathtakingly blunt list of explanations for the “exodus.” “Perhaps the church appeared too weak, perhaps too distant from their needs, perhaps too poor to respond to their concerns, perhaps too cold, perhaps too caught up with itself, perhaps a prisoner of its own rigid formulas,” he said.
Francis headed into the final hours of his first international trip riding a remarkable wave of popularity.
In the longest and most important speech of his four-month pontificate, Francis took a direct swipe at the “intellectual” message of the church that so characterised the pontificate of his predecessor, Benedict XVI. Speaking to Brazil’s bishops, he said ordinary Catholics didn’t understand such lofty ideas and needed to hear the simpler message of love, forgiveness and mercy that he said was at the core of the Catholic faith.
“At times we lose people because they don’t understand what we are saying, because we have forgotten the language of simplicity and import an intellectualism foreign to our people,” he said. “Without the grammar of simplicity, the church loses the very conditions which make it possible to fish for God in the deep waters of his mystery.”
Francis asked bishops to reflect on why hundreds of thousands of Catholics had left the church for Protestant and Pentecostal congregations that have grown exponentially in recent decades, particularly in Brazil’s slums or favelas, where their charismatic message and nuts-and-bolts advice has been welcomed.
Francis offered a breathtakingly blunt list of explanations for the “exodus.” “Perhaps the church appeared too weak, perhaps too distant from their needs, perhaps too poor to respond to their concerns, perhaps too cold, perhaps too caught up with itself, perhaps a prisoner of its own rigid formulas,” he said.
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